Dog Diaries 07 - Stubby (7 page)

The excitement got to be too much, and I started to bark. Not at my guys, of course. At the enemy. It might seem like a pretty lame exercise for a dog to bark in the face of gunfire, but I couldn’t just hide. I had to do
something.
And barking’s one thing we dogs know how to do.

The men didn’t mind me doing this. But they minded plenty when I did my business in the trench. So during lulls in the fighting, I would go out to lift a leg. There were two sets of coiled
barbed wire, one that ran along our trenches, and the other about half a city block away in front of the enemy’s trenches. Barbed wire is razor sharp. I learned this the hard way when I rubbed up against some one time and got a bad scratch. Conroy had to put medicine on it that stung like the dickens, so now I didn’t tangle with the stuff. The area between the two rows of barbed wire was called No Man’s Land. There were strips of No Man’s Lands all across France.

On the day I’m talking about, I lit out for No Man’s Land to do my business. I found a nice big gap in the barbed wire to squeeze through. There was nothing out there but shell craters and tree stumps and charred bushes. I caught sight of one of our soldiers lying on the ground. He was moaning.

I rushed to his side.

“Hey, Stubby,” he said weakly. “What are you doing out here? It’s dangerous.”

I might have said the same for him. He must have left the trench to get a better shot at the enemy. But they had gotten him first. I offered him what comfort I could. His face was bleeding, and I licked it. The blood tasted saltier than rations. There was more blood on his uniform where he clutched a hand to his side. Suddenly, I saw a couple of medics with a stretcher. I barked as hard as I could to let them know where we were, and stayed with the wounded man until they carried him off. After that, I went on a search. On that day alone, I found nine more soldiers. Sad to say, three of them were dead. I kept the medics on their toes.

When the shooting started up again, I hightailed it back to the trenches. All around me, bullets cut into the earth. Who would shoot at a dog?
I liked to think it was nothing personal. Maybe I was just in the way. Then again, maybe they didn’t like little mutts.
Grrrr.

Conroy fell down on his knees when he saw me. I tell you, that man hugged me so hard it hurt. “Stubby, you scared me half to death. Where have you been? You can’t wander off like that. This is war!”

I hated upsetting Conroy. But I knew I would wander off again. Because now there was a way I could really make a difference in this war. I could help wounded soldiers stranded in No Man’s Land.

One day, during another lull, I sneaked out to lift my leg on a blackened bush. I was going about my business, when something came flying through the air and landed,
ka-thunk,
at my feet. It was a strange-looking metal canister. I gave it a wary sniff. Before I could figure out what was inside,
the thing cracked open and began to hiss like an angry cat.

My eyes started to burn. My knees buckled. My head spun, and I staggered around. Then I keeled over into the mud.

—

I dreamt I was back in the alley. Apron Man came out of the eatery. He picked up a handful of gravel and threw it at me. The gravel was red-hot. It burned my face and chest.

When I woke up, I couldn’t see a thing. My
nose wasn’t working too well, either. But my ears were fine. I could hear Conroy, and I could feel his hand resting gently on my chest. I tried to let him know that I was okay. But for the life of me, I couldn’t move a hair on my body. I might as well have been a dog made of stone.

“Hey, Doc Burns. I felt a twitch,” Conroy said. “I think he just woke up.”

“He’s lucky to be alive,” said Dr. Burns. “He was right on top of that gas canister when it went off. When I think of people gassing an innocent dog…That’s what I call a war crime.”

Gas canister? My mind drifted back to the moment when the strange hissing object landed by my foot. Then I remembered what the army horse had said:
Watch out for the gas!

The next time a horse gave me advice, I was going to listen.

Ever heard the expression
sick as a dog
? Well, I was sicker. My stomach burned like I’d swallowed hot coals, and my eyes were glued shut. My lungs itched so bad I could have stuck my paw down my throat and scratched…which I would have done if I could have moved a muscle…which I could not.

To his credit, Conroy stayed by my side. The constant murmuring of his voice was my lifeline.

“You’ve got to get better, Stubby. I can’t make it through this war without my best buddy. The whole outfit is rooting for you to pull through.”

I heard him, sure, but I was trapped inside the stone dog. I just lay there, like a lump.

“You were gassed, Stubby,” Conroy said. “The doc’s been giving you oxygen and rinsing your eyes with water. But I’ll be honest with you, little guy, the doctors aren’t positive you’re going to make it.
That mustard gas is bad stuff. It’s not the kind of mustard you put on a hot dog. It’s poison. The worst weapon ever made. They call it the King of Battle Gases. We all have gas masks to wear—the guys are making one for you. You’re going to wear it, too, in the next attack.”

I groaned inwardly. The next attack? There was going to be another?

I don’t know how long I lay there. Maybe days. Conroy began to get desperate. I could hear it in his voice. “Just give me a sign, Stubby—one little sign that you’re getting better. I’m trying not to lose hope here, but it’s getting hard.”

Maybe it was the pleading edge I heard in his voice. Maybe I was just ready to snap out of it. But suddenly, I felt my tail start to twitch.

“Stubby!” Conroy shouted. “Atta boy!”

The next thing I knew, my bones were creaking
and I was sitting up. I opened my gluey eyes one at a time. I saw tears rolling down Conroy’s cheeks. He was grinning like a fool. How I’d missed the sorry sight of that soldier boy!

“You did it! You pulled through! You’re gonna live!”

I gave out a little woof. Of course I was alive. I wasn’t ready to push up daisies yet. With a bone-dry tongue, I gave his buttery fingers a lick. The taste made my mouth start to water. I kissed Conroy, and darned if he didn’t kiss me right back, all over my sorry mug.

A F
OUR
-L
EGGED
W
ARNING
S
YSTEM

When I got discharged from the hospital, it was back to the good old Front. Everybody was thrilled to see me. I took a run up and down the trenches, checking in with everyone to make sure they’d been okay while I was out of commission. By the time the shooting started up again, I was stationed on top of an ammunition case, barking and howling fit to burst. How dare they fire at my boys! How dare they?

I was in such a lather that Conroy stopped shooting long enough to have himself a good chuckle. “You’ve worked yourself into a regular battle rage!”

I was angry, all right.

Early one morning, I was cozied up in the dugout next to Conroy. I’d gotten myself wedged in his armpit, where I could feel his breath ruffling the top of my head as he snored away. The enemy had come down hard on us the night before. Now that the fighting had let up, everybody was fast asleep. I had been, too. But all of a sudden, I was wide-awake.

My nose twitched. The hair along my spine stood straight up.
There is something wrong.
Deep in my gut, where the last drop of the mustard gas still burned, it was starting to bubble and boil and talk to me.

It was saying,
I’m gonna get you this time, mutt.

I aimed to listen.

I licked Conroy’s face.
Wake up. Something’s coming. Something bad.

Conroy groaned and shoved me away. “Lay off. Go back to bed.”

I went into his gear and dug out his gas mask. I dragged it over to him.
Here, put this thing on. The gas is headed this way.

Don’t ask me how I knew. Maybe being gassed had made me sensitive to the smell. Or maybe I was just being a nervous Nellie. But no matter how convinced I was, Conroy didn’t care. All he wanted to do was sleep.

I started running up and down the trench, sounding the alarm. The men groaned. I nipped at them, tugging at their coat sleeves and pant legs. Just like Conroy, they lay there like dummies.

Don’t you get it? You’re in danger.
I lifted my head and started to howl.

One of them clapped his hands over his ears. “Put a sock in it, Stubby!”

“Conroy!” another soldier moaned. “Tell your dog to shut his fuzzy yap!”

But I was
not
going to shut my fuzzy yap. Not until they wised up, woke up, and listened up.

Finally, one of Conroy’s buddies shook the sleep out of his head. He gave me a look. “What’s the matter, Stubby? What’s got you so riled?”

I got up on my hind legs and danced. But this was no happy little bandy-legged bull terrier jig. This was the Dance of Danger! Then—finally—it dawned on him.

“Hey, guys,” he said slowly, “I think the dog is trying to tell us something.”

“Like what?” asked another guy. “He’s hungry?”

“No. Like maybe there’s a gas attack headed this way.”

At the mention of
gas,
the other guy was suddenly kicking free of his sleeping bag. He clawed his way over the sandbags and peered around. I crawled up beside him.

It looked like dawn mist, all innocent, blowing from the direction of No Man’s Land.

But we both knew better.

That mist was gas, wafting toward us on the morning breeze.

“GAS!” the soldier hollered. “Gas attack!”

The men started to wake up. And it was about time they did! I headed to the other trenches, zigzagging my way along, barking the alarm.

Everybody was on their feet now, fumbling for their gas masks. I ran back and checked to see that Conroy had put his on. He looked like a
monster when he wore it. But it didn’t scare me. What scared me was gas. I climbed into the dugout and burrowed into his sleeping bag until there was nothing showing but my tail.

After that, silence. All I heard was the rasping of the men breathing through their masks.

Maybe Mother Nature had given me some kind of gas meter in my tail, but somehow I sensed when it was safe to come out. I backed out of the
bag, shook myself all over, and took in a big lungful of air. I could barely detect a trace of the stuff.

One by one, the men took off their masks. They crowed with relief and crowded around. Conroy hugged me so hard my bug eyes bugged. He gave my back a good, long scratching until I was just one big, slobbering grin.

“No two ways about it. You saved us, Stubby,” he said.

Aw, shucks. It was nothing.

“The next time you kick up a fuss, we’ll listen.”

Afterward, Conroy gave me most of his morning rations. Some of the other men tossed me scraps from theirs. My belly was full, and my boys were safe. All told, I was feeling pretty good about the way things had turned out.